You're a superstar, at the gay bar

The other day I was in the lab working when one of the undergraduate researchers came in to do some bench work. He set up his laptop, and started playing music from his itunes library. Most of it was show tunes.

I texted a friend about it, lamenting the fact that I'd forgotten to bring in my iPod that day.

My friend texted this back: Punch him in his gay little ball sack - noone should have to put up with that shit.

He's right. But luckily for that undergraduate, he'd finished his work and left by the time I'd received my instructions.

Forget about feelings, that's not what pays

Student (about to turn in his lab final): How can we find out our grades?

Me: I'll have them posted outside the lab sometime tomorrow.

Student: Is there any chance for extra credit?

Me: No.

Student: You need your car washed or anything?

Me: No.

Student: Need a tall blonde girl? I could see about sending a hottie your way.

Me: No, I think I'm good.

Another student approached me and said that the one who made the "offer" shoots porno films.

Which means he probably could've delivered the goods.

Which means . . .

WHAT WAS I THINKING???

The test begins NOW

In part because I was feeling lazy and didn't want to have to think of another question to put on my students' final exam, and in part because I wanted to be nice and give them a freebie, the final question on their final (see what I just did there?) was this:

What is the answer to this question?
A) A is not the answer. Do not put A.
B) B is the answer. Put B.
C) C is not the answer. B is.
D) D is not the answer either. Seriously, put B.
E) Why are you even still reading this? Put B already.

Three people missed it.

I officially give up.

I tell you what mathematically I'm having it, I want to live on science alone

Do you ever have those days where you wonder why you chose your profession? I had one of those yesterday as I was trying to make it through a paper describing a computer program that looks like it'll do something I've been trying to figure out for a while now.

Here's an exerpt:

The goal is, therefore, to determine for each i from 1 to n such λ(i, z_i, k_i), where z_i = 1 or 2 and 0≤k_i≤K_max, that the resulting solution has the maximum V. In order to do it, we estimate for each λ(i, z_i, k_i) the maximum V of all the solutions containing that configuration. For any a_i in F consider strings F' =a₁a₂…a_i and F" = a_ia_i+1…a_n. For each λ(i, z_i, k_i) denote the maximum V of all the aligned solutions of F' that end with λ(i, z_i, k_i) as P(i, z_i, k_i). Denote the maximum V of all the aligned solutions of F" that begin with λ(i, z_i, k_i) as Q(i, z_i, k_i). Let for a particular λ(i, z_i, k_i) the sum of the corresponding P and Q be the maximum of all aligned configurations at i. In that case, the maximum V of all the solutions of F containing λ(i, z_i, k_i) equals the maximum V of any solutions of F.

And on it went, just like that, for another six pages. I didn't understand any of it. I showed it to my advisor and he said something like, "Well, with that many equations, it must be right."

Words to live by.